


all that is what i want

by boyfrendery



Series: as i wait, as time unwinds [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Not K-Pop Idols, Childhood Memories, Driving, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Melancholy, Siblings, johnny and mark maintain their age difference as in real life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-06-30 00:37:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19841872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boyfrendery/pseuds/boyfrendery
Summary: johnny takes mark on a late night drive along the highway





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title from [this amazing song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkbQjWWSSuc). the mood of the song (but not necessarily the lyrics) captures the overall vibe of the fic.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> silence sits between the brothers during their car ride

Sitting in the passenger seat of his brother’s car used to make Mark feel like the world is all his own.

His head is pressed back against the headrest inside Johnny’s run down Civic, seat belt fastened against his chest. Every window is slightly lowered, wind tousling their hair while they speed along the highway. Soft words stumble over guitared triplets as the stereo fills the vehicle with breezy vocals and wide harmonies, lyrics spilling past the windows and out to the world beyond them.

“It’s been a while since we took a night drive.”

Mark stares past the glass, watching the buildings come and go as they progress further away from home. The roads feel endless.

“Where do you want to go today? Target and McDonald’s are always open” Johnny asks, right hand loosely hanging off the steering wheel. It’s well past rush hour and few other cars are in sight.

“You can pick. I’m up for anything.” Mark counts the concrete and glass towers as the zoom past - one, two, three, four. “It’s been a while.”

Despite the empty road, Johnny’s eyes remain glued forward. He doesn’t need to look at Mark to know his lips are held together in concentration, mind drifting somewhere else. His silence is enough. “Let’s go to McDonald’s.”

They drift along the road in silence, letting the music fill the small five-seater. By the time Johnny exits the highway, the EP playing loops itself over once more.

McDonald’s tastes different at night when enjoyed seated in a parking lot. Five minutes south of their house is a McDonald’s exactly like this one, yet their late night drives always bring them to one 30 minutes away.

Johnny unlocks the car and settles into the driver’s seat, drawing out a pack of fries before handing the paper bag to Mark. He dips a fry into the ice cream in his other hand and bites into the sweet-salty potato. Mark pulls out two burgers and arranges them in his lap to make a frankenstein sandwich. This is way more bread than needed at 11 at night.

They sit in the car chewing wordlessly for a bit before Johnny breaks the silence. “How’s school been?”

“It’s school,” Mark’s words are muffled between burger and bun. “Professors and assignments and skipping class. Statistics is the worst.”

“Dude, I know. Everyone has to take stats,” Johnny wipes his hand across his mouth, cleaning his face of the ice cream dripping off his lips. “I failed it the first time,” he bites into another dipped fry. “Didn’t tell mom.”

“Really?” Marks turns to look at Johnny, eyes wide with disbelief. The frames sitting atop his nose make his eyes look bigger than usual. “Mom would be pissed.”

“She doesn’t need to know. I graduated and that’s all that matters.”

Mark is the first to finish his food, nearly inhaling the burger. Johnny’s ice cream is melted and soupy by the time he’s gone through all the fries, soaking the ends of each in vanilla.

They toss the garbage into the paper bag and buckle their seatbelts to head onto the road once more.

Johnny’s turning onto the highway when he barely hears Mark say, “They both miss you.” He holds onto the wheel with his left hand and reaches his right toward the stereo. He lowers the dial down slightly, hushing the melodies emitting from the stereo.

Mark’s no longer staring out the passenger window. His eyes are forward, gaze fixed at the space in front of him. Lights in his peripherals pass them one by one. “Even when you were in school, we’d hang out once a week. Now I’m lucky if I see you once a month.”

Johnny holds onto the wheel tighter. “I’ve just… been busy. I’m sorry.”

“You have your own home now, a job. You don’t live here anymore,” Mark turns his head right again, counting the buildings - one, two, three, four. “I get it.”

Mark doesn’t need to say _I miss you_ for Johnny to know how he’s feeling. Johnny can’t muster anything out except “I’m sorry. I’ll try to come home more often.”

The younger boy takes off his glasses and places them on the dashboard. With eyes unaided, everything softens: lights are smudged along the edges, signs blurry, a trail of amber and asphalt following behind them. The world disintegrates into this moment.

Late night rides along the highway used to fill Mark with adrenaline, the excitement of spending time with his older brother. Now, they’re simply a reminder of what life used to be like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the ep that they’re listening to in the car is hyukoh’s album 22.
> 
> i was feeling... a little sad, and i saw [this post](https://yellowpoet.tumblr.com/post/151629891140/my-aesthetic-when-you-take-off-your-glasses-in) and thought about johnny and mark driving in [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDd5yGt_cRA) and then this fic happened. wrote the first chapter in a couple hours and i'm not sure what it's supposed to be.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mark is reminded of what waits for him at home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: implied alcoholism

Johnny’s car is parked in their family home’s driveway, its engine no longer humming, guitared melodies halted and frozen within the CD. They sit in the driveway for a few moments and breathe in silence. It smells mostly of the air freshener attached to the car vent, a green clip emitting soft scents of endless meadows and raindrops clinging to grass — a sharp contrast to the industrial oil lingering in the air from their empty bag of fries.

Mark peers out his window and looks toward their front door. Through the darkness he can see the faintest glow of amber on the steps of their porch: an abandoned cigarette, its butt keeping aflame through the November wind. He shuts his eyes tightly at the sight, furrowing his brow, then sighs.

“Is he there?” Johnny asks. The bag of McDonald’s sits in his lap, clutched in his right hand, while his left is held firmly against the handle of the driver’s side door.

“No, but his cigarette is. Must have finished a few minutes ago.”

The first traces of winter tickle Mark’s bare neck as he steps out of the car. They left the house hurriedly, Mark neglecting to put on anything more than a jean jacket and t-shirt. Johnny always kept a sweater in his car for just these occasions — even now, an oversized grey hoodie waited in his backseat. Mark makes a mental note to give it back to Johnny in the morning.

Johnny opens their front door with a flick of his wrist, quickly turning the key and tucking it in his back pocket before heading inside. Mark instinctively looks behind him before entering his house, wavering for a moment as he stares at the cigarette butt on the ground. He stomps on it, the ball of his sneakers extinguishing the sad, small flame. He double checks the butt once more before locking the door.

Both boys kick off their shoes and walk toward their rooms, past the living room and kitchen. There is not a trace of light in the house, the only source emitting from the stove clock’s red numbers. Johnny heads toward his childhood bedroom — the high school angst and décor still intact, band posters and all — while Mark stays in the kitchen. “Good night, hyung,” Mark says, voice just loud enough to reach down the hall to the first door on the right.

The dim red glow of the clock reflects off the bottles of beer along the kitchen counter. Mark takes a look around and sighs once more, picking up each bottle in the crooks between his fingers. He finds one bottle cap in the sink, another on the stovetop, one more in the corner between the cabinet and the kitchen doorway. He slips each cap into his hoodie pocket and carries the bottles with him toward the front foyer, through the side door into the garage.

Like other houses, their garage serves like an extra storage room. Their Christmas tree lays untouched here for 11 months, tucked away in an overstuffed box underneath the shelves of cardboard boxes. Some of these boxes hold old memories: wedding memories of their parents, from a time before Johnny, before Mark; childhood film photos neatly presented in embroidered albums, memories that Mark remembers flipping through in his preteen years for a school project. But most of these boxes contain glass.

Mark stacks the three beer bottles into one of the boxes and walks to the front of the garage. Beside his old bicycle is an old black gift box with a loosely fitted lid, exterior dotted in faded shades of white. He lifts open the top and places the bottle caps in his hoodie there, the metal echoing as the pile grows three caps taller. The stool next to the garage door remains in the same spot it has been for years. Mark swears he can see a silhouette there, the ghost of a man sitting in that very corner.

Once, when Mark was 8, he snuck out of bed past his bedtime. He heard the restless footsteps of his father down the hall, pacing around in the kitchen and murmuring to himself. When he left his room and looked around the corner, he saw his father looking through the fridge.

Sharing a wall with Johnny made every creak audible, however. He quickly heard Mark get out of bed and followed behind him, pulling him back just before he entered the kitchen.

“Go back to bed,” Johnny whispered to Mark. His palm was pressed against Mark’s mouth, warmth covering the younger boy’s lips. Their father walked by them unfazed, carrying another brown glass in his hand.

“Did dad go to the garage?” Mark finally asked when they were back in his room.

“Yeah. He goes there by himself sometimes,” Johnny answered, still whispering.

“He was yelling at mom earlier, when you were at Doyoung-hyung’s house,” Mark said as Johnny walked toward the door. He winced when Mark continued, “I don’t know why he was mad.”

“I don’t know either,” Johnny replied, closing the door behind him.

The next morning, Mark woke up in his bed with Johnny next to him, asleep on top of his comforter. At breakfast, he found a bottle cap on the kitchen floor.

The paper thin walls of their home makes it easy for Mark to notice that Johnny is still awake when he returns from the garage. He passes by the door and glances through the slit to see Johnny on his bed, looking at his phone. The brightness of his screen reflects off his face, illuminating his blank expression as his thumb scrolls up and down.

He hesitates for a moment at the doorway before pushing it open, causing Johnny to sit up. He takes one look at Mark and shifts in his bed to the right, making space on his bed. He continues scrolling through his phone for a few minutes before plugging it into a charger, setting it underneath his pillow.

Mark crawls into Johnny’s bed wordlessly, peeling off the grey hoodie before sliding underneath the comforter. He wraps the blanket tight in his arms, rolling onto his side to face the wall — away from Johnny — and closes his eyes. Before he falls asleep, Mark exhales loud enough for both of them to hear him sniffle, a dampness soaking pillowcase below the corner of his eye. “I don't want to live here too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess what... i'm making this into a series! expect the prequel to this fic in the future :)
> 
> let me know what you think about johnny and mark's relationship so far - i've never attempted to write something like this so all comments are very much appreciated ♡

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/boyfrendery) | [cc](https://curiouscat.me/boyfrendery)


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